A few days ago, I blogged a beautiful photo of the super pretty mom-to-be Celina Jaitly. The actress did receive a lot of love and compliments for spreading body positivity. But unfortunately, she was also trolled and slut shamed by several people. Naturally, she was slightly disappointed with this kind of negativity and regressive responses.
Over to Celina:
I take this opportunity to write this from my prescribed bed rest as I enter the final most challenging part of my twin pregnancy the third trimester.
GOOD GOD ARE THOSE Shoulders, arms AND TUMMY?! Oh wait even a peeking knee cap… MY EYES ARE BURNING WITH THE SLUTINESS!!!
Having been perceived to violate traditional expectations for behaviour and dress code during pregnancy, it was not surprising to see trolling/slut shaming on my post and honestly, to me, they truly are laughable and don’t affect me personally. However, what disturbed me was the aspect that even in today’s times, an immense growth is being seen in this kind of regressive mentality and how some people driven by this ideology are willing to intimidate a woman (even a pregnant woman) using a considerable amount of verbal violence along with intentions of sexual violence just because the picture did not meet the traditional and cultural expectations of a few self proclaimed thekedars of our society.
Funnily enough, the bathtub picture actually shows less skin than most of the outfits that me and many of my colleagues have worn for several of our films.
While men do slut shame, often women are the strongest cultural enforcers of slut shaming, you will see that when you go to my Instagram account. It’s amazing that slut shaming is rarely about actual sexual activity, but rather perceived sexuality through clothes or attitudes. In my case, despite only a bit of the tummy, shoulders and knee showing – I realised smilingly that what bothered the Shamers was what was “not” that was visible in the bathtub picture but what was “perceived” to be visible through their demented imagination.
My observation is that – the Shamers were immensely uncomfortable “more” from the parts of my body that were “covered” by the water, and were apparently definitely nude, making their imaginations run in all directions which of course were against all social norms.
Hence, in our culture with such an assumption, one automatically gains the rights to call a woman a slut, a bitch, a whore and of course, it is also shockingly okay to even punish her by rape and sexually torment such a woman as per many comments on my picture on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and MissMalini and many other websites. Ironically enough, most of the perpetrators of such verbal violence are also women themselves. Unfortunately, many women fail to realise that to make progressive attempts for their own evolution, they have to start changing the way they view themselves, and other women too.
In our culture, one thing is for sure – the only way one expresses disapproval is through verbal or physical violence. There is no scope for resolution, solution, general discussion or using civilised language to express disapproval. I fail to understand why does something (like my so called ‘against the Indian social norms’ bathtub picture) which does not agree to one’s taste or liking, has to become a candidate for any kind of violence…
Both physical and verbal sexual violence is criminally an offence in the real world. But what really worries me is the fact that in our culture, so many people (both men and women) tend to have the intention to resort to sexual, verbal and physical violence to punish one for something makes them uncomfortable. Specially to think that there are so many people who feel it’s okay to harm a pregnant woman or for that matter, any woman with physical, sexual and verbal abuse. No wonder violence against women has increased in our country because such narcissistic people are actually allowed to have a voice and practice their regressive and delinquent thought processes and ideologies.
Slut shaming is not funny, it is dangerous, hurtful, disrespectful and harmful to women. It’s important to question society when they expect women to behave in ways that men are not expected to.
While many of my colleagues for their own reasons may have chosen to keep quiet when they too went through the same, I take it as my social responsibility to speak up against it. My intention as an actor, a beauty queen a human rights activist and most of all – as a a mother, has always been to empower, encourage and break social stigmas through my blessed platform. As the post which supported my picture clearly said (you can read it here: Celina Jaitly Shows Off Her Baby Bump In This Beautiful Bathtub Photo)
All I can say is that if you are being slut shamed, remember that it is not your fault. The problem is with the way many people are socially conditioned to think about women.
However, ending on a positive note.. a big thank you to my many followers who stood up to all the abuse. I am overwhelmed by their support and love and most of all, I am so proud to see that my beloved followers have a voice that is right and that their values and hearts are in the right place.